Vox Populi
A curated webspace for Poetry, Politics, and Nature with over 20,000 daily subscribers and over 8,000 archived posts.
Vox Populi: The Most Popular Posts of 2024
Dear friends,
Thank you so much for helping to make Vox Populi a success in 2024. It has been the great privilege of my life to bring poetry and ideas to people who appreciate them.
Since Vox Populi’s founding 10 years ago as a newsletter for anti-fracking activists in Western Pennsylvania, VP has accumulated more than 5,000,000 visits. We now have over 20,000 daily subscribers, about 35% outside the United States. In the last year, VP sent our subscribers a total of 730 posts, two per day, with approximately 50% poetry, 20% personal essays, 20% political articles, and 10% a miscellany of art, film, humor, music and healthy living.
With the Gaza conflict on almost everyone’s mind despite major US news outlets trying to minimize the issue, it should come as no surprise that VP’s most popular post was Abe Louise Young’s courageous personal essay New Seeds for Old Stories about her attempt to understand what it means to be a Jewish person in a time of displacement and genocide. The second most popular post was Naomi Shihab Nye’s Before I Was A Gazan, a subtle poem in the voice of a boy remembering what it was like to have a normal life and go to school.
This year I’ve divided the list into seven somewhat overlapping categories, displaying a variety of ways to experience poetry, politics and nature; and for the first time, I’ve listed each author only once, allowing a more diverse group of creators.
In this challenging time, may we face the future with a cold eye and a warm heart.
Michael Simms, founding editor
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Poetry
Naomi Shihab Nye: Before I Was A Gazan
Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer: With Astonishing Tenderness
Barbara Hamby: Ode on Killing Sadness
Editor’s Choice:
Laure-Anne Bosselaar: Widow’s Bedroom
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Personal Essays
Abe Louise Young: New Seeds for Old Stories
Jason Irwin: A Slice of the American Dream
Desne A. Crossley: O Rosie Girl
Andrew Reginald Hairston: Sweet Potato Pie
Rebecca Gordon: A Personal Meditation on Growing Old In a Catastrophic Age
Editor’s Choice
Ramzy Baroud: For the Love of Gaza
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Political Articles
Patricia Nugent: No Time for Memes
Alfred Corn: Instagram posts of Dr. Ali Tahrawi
Chris Hedges: Revolt in the Universities
Michael Simms: A note to our readers concerning Vox Populi’s coverage of the war on Gaza
Bob Kunzinger: Moral Absolutism | Do Not Kill Children
Editor’s Choice:
George Yancy: Cornel West | We Must Keep Our Souls Intact as We Organize Under Trump Again
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Critical Essays about Literature and Art
Baron Wormser: After Poetry Month
Mike Vargo: The Insanity of Our Times, According to Philip Slater
Editor’s Choice:
Video: Earthsea | What the Original Wizard School Got Right
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Humor and Satire (Multiple genres)
Abby Zimet: Holy, Holy, Holy | Guilty As F-ck Of Absolutely Everything
Adam Patric Miller: How (Not) to Wear a Keffiyeh to School
Christine Rhein: Attack of the Five-Foot-Four Woman
Editor’s Choice:
Video: Opulent Round Edible Object
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Health and Nutrition (Multiple Genres)
David Kirby: That Happened Sometimes
Barbara Huntington: Lost in Translation | Thoughts on Poetry After My Stroke
Daniel Hunter: 10 ways to be prepared and grounded now that Trump has won
Editor’s Choice
William Trowbridge: Packinghouseland, 1957
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Art, Film, Music
Video: The Blossom, by William Blake
Video: Hildegard of Bingen | Love Aboundeth In All Things
Editor’s Choice:
Video: Birdsong | The dying whistled language of the Hmong people in northern Laos
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Michael Simms is the founding editor of Vox Populi. His poetry collections include Strange Meadowlark (Ragged Sky, 2023), and his speculative novels include The Talon Trilogy (Madville 2023, 2024, 2025).
Copyright 2024 Michael Simms
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Thanks to VP for carrying on and aiding the struggle for peace and justice in a unique and valued way. Although I posted “New Seeds for Old Stories” when it was first here, I have reposted it again on Facebook with the strong suggestion that it be read and shared again…and again….and…… Without a doubt, it was one of the most dramatic and wrenching tales of awakening and personal historical confrontation I have ever read. It should encourage all of us to not only share the trauma inflicted on others with the hopes that we can bring its end, but our personal traumas that awaken in us the need and desire to do so. Onward.
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Thank you, Mel. Your comments in VP have been a special contribution to our community. Here, you have written passionately and persuasively of justice and decency. You are the living conscience of Vox Populi.
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This is an amazing site full of interesting surprises that are educational, beautiful, thought-provoking and never boring. Thanks so much for all that you do, Michael.
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Thank you, Mandy. Your presence as a poet and commentator on this site has been admirable. We are lucky to have you among us.
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Wonderful, Michael. What you do for poetry can’t be measured.
All the best to you and Vox Populi in 2025 and ever after,
David
[photo]
David Kirby
Robert O. Lawton Distinguished Professor of English, Florida State University
850-877-7411 | 850-345-8370 | dkirby@fsu.edudkirby@fsu.edu | http://www.davidkirby.comhttp://www.davidkirby.com/ | Skype: david.kirby6363 | Department of English, Florida State University, Tallahassee, FL 32306-1580
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Thank you, Michael – Your wise offerings in Vox Populi light up the darkness inside me.
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Thank you, Bonnie!
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I echo what Laure-Anne said so eloquently Michael. I so appreciate your offerings, your sensibilities, your gift of bringing necessary words and ideas into the world. A deep bow of thanks to you.
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Thank you, Jan! I appreciate your comments here.
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I wrote this to you in an email, Michael — but allow me to repeat this more publicly:
It is YOU we need to thank — all of us VOX POPULI readers & authors for the daily richness you provide to us every day. Every single day! Thank you for all those hours you devote to VP. Hours of research, choosing & publishing poems, essays, videos — my first reads as I start my day. Not to forget your many comments on our comments… Thank you so very much, Michael.
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Thank you, Laure-Anne. As I’ve said elsewhere, you are a national treasure.
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Thank you, Michael. Thank you. Vox Populi has kept me going through the music of poetry, the mystery of art ( as in today’s movie), the wisdom and the compassion of the essays, the friends I have made. A very important part of my life. Thank you.
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You have a youthful soul and a brave heart, Barbara.
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Dear Michael, thank you for your unflinching work to put VOX POPULI together, and thank you to all contributors for your honesty, your creativity, and your magic with thought and word. What would I do without VOX POPULI? The world would be a sadder and more hopeless place.
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Thank you, Rosemary. I look forward each day to your responses in this space.
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Thanks, Rose Mary.
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Vox Populi has been important to me for many years but particularly in the ghastly fifteen months of the slaughter in Gaza. Thank you for your courage and humanity, both badly needed at this moment.
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Thank you for your courageous stands against war and tyranny.
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So honored to be included among such luminaries. Michael, thanks to you & the Vox Populi community for your unyielding support of me & other writers.
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Thanks, Andrew. I love your brave essay.
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It was an honor to be a part of Vox Populi 2024. Thank you, Michael, for all you do. Sent from my iPhone
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Thanks, Donna! Love your poems!
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Of course I first off read all the poetry, so delighted to be present in that offering, and so deeply moved by each selection (I was somehow even able to give myself a chance and at least concluded unashamed). As for the others, I agree! I agree! Oh my God they are life changing poems and Michael—You are so wise and wonderful on the world’s behalf in all you’ve managed to do, and, this is the most perfect little “Anthology,” cast from from a certain “recency” any of us will ever read!
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Thanks, Sean. You are an important part of VP.
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If William Blake had inherited a cattle ranch in Florida and every morning sat on a horse and watched the cattle grazing in the pasture while the sun came up over the trees, he might have written Sean Sexton’s poems.
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YESSS!
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In a time of drowning, you’ve thrown us many lifelines. As one of your 20,000 readers, you’ve given hope to me. Thank you for helping keep us afloat.
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Thanks, Jim. I value your daily offerings to us. Without commentators like you, VP really does seem like an echo chamber to me.
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